Ballycotton

Have been asked to come up with a logo for Balycotton lighthouse, so yesterday I availed of the few clear breaks in the weather to make a few sketches.

Starlings

It's a million years since I posted anything, well seems like that, but I have been keeping up with everybody else's posts.

Sitting out in my garden yesterday, and the Starlings were beginning to gather on the wires. The way the light was they were just dark silhouettes, so I grabbed my sketchbook and got these down before they all flew.

Brown Shrike

Seeing Elva's sketches of the Loggerhead Shrike reminded me of sketches I made a few years back of a Brown Shrike, a very rare bird in Ireland, in fact the first and so far last record. Any Shrike in Ireland is rare , this species is from Asia so it had really got lost.

What the cat brought in!

Every Spring I have a problem with the cat's catching lizards, they never kill them , just bring them into the kitchen to play with. Lizards being lizards, the first thing they do on being caught is to let their tail go, so I rarely see one with a complete tail. They are an easy mark at this time of year, as they are still sluggish, being cold blooded and sunshine scarce. Despite the name, Common Lizard, they are far from common in Ireland these days, so I feel very priveleged that there is a healthy population in my area.

Hi all, just spent a weekend away with my art group, supposed to be a painting week end but as usual it descended into a competition as to who could drink the most red wine. A great weekend all the same and I actually managed to get a couple sketches done, even though the weather was not great. This is the first sketch in my new hand made journal, made by everday member Vicki Holdwick

Grey Heron and Mallard

Did this sketch in Ballycotton harbour last year, an immature Grey Heron, unfortunately it flew before I got all the colour down, so will put some watercolour in and see how it looks.

Another discarded painting I found while rooting in my studio. A bit stylized, but maybe with a bit more colour in the sky it can be salvaged. Also think the female needs attention, she looks like she's on the water like a cork rather than in the water.

Lapwings and Plovers

I braved the wind and rain for a short while yesterday and visited one of my local birding areas, just a couple of minutes from home. A large mixed flock of Lapwing and Golden Plover were just above the beach on a muddy inlet and I couldn't resist trying to get some of them down on paper. Not the best sketch I ever did, but given the conditions, I wont be too critical.

Ink Sketches

A couple of pages from my sketchbook of 2007. At the end of October a birding friend arrived at my door breathless to say he had just found a Dusky Warbler, a very rare bird from Asia, just down the road from my house. This was a bird I had never seen before and in my hurry to see it, just grabbed the sketchbook and a black pen. I have to say I liked the results, with a pen you just have to go for it and not worry too much about the results. After watching the Dusky for several hours, walked back to my house along a narrow lane, when my eye was caught by a small warbler flitting around. It turned out to be another rarity, though not with quite the same status , a Pallas's Warbler from Siberia.

Dusky Warbler.

Eurasian Oystercatcher

Oystercatcher are a very common shorebird around the Irish coast, both winter and summer. They often spend a lot of time ,between feeding bouts, just sitting around with their heads tucked under their wing. This gives an opportunity to get a few sketches without them constantly moving.